Dec
28
2011
Link Drop
Posted by azruavatar in Uncategorized, tags: Lance Jeffries, shelby miller, Zach CoxA few links for your morning reading:
- Baseball Instinct’s Shelby Miller Scouting Report (from June) – The change in groundball rate when he moved to Springfield was not happenstance but a very concerted effort on the part of the coaching staff and Shelby to keep the ball down in the zone. The four seam fastball up and out of the zone is still a swing and miss offering but groundballs are king in St. Louis.
- Prep Baseball Report & Lance Jeffries (h/t nmstar) – The Cardinals really got into drafting speedy outfielders this year.
- Baseball Instinct’s Zach Cox Scouting Report – I think the differences between Matt Carpenter and Cox on prospect lists is quite interesting and almost entirely a function of draft position.
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Awesome bit from the Miller scouting report: “After the Nationals selected Stephen Strasburg at #1 there are now 17 other players selected 2-18 who fall below Miller on the prospect charts.”
AZ, thanks for the links.
After reading the article on Jeffries, I wonder why he lasted until the 10th round, even in a deep draft. AFAIK, he wasn’t set on going to college or looking for a huge bonus. Seems to have a great attitude and work ethic. Makes me wonder what the scouts saw that kept teams from pulling the trigger before the 10th.
Something to read over the winter… love it, thanks.
Thought the same about Jeffries lasting until the 10th. Wonder if some of the answer is in his own comments about what a huge difference there was between high school and the GCL. It sounds like he might have not had the same kind of exposure to top competition as somebody like Tilson did.
Baseball drafts are really enigmatic to me. There are so many players – everyone probably agrees on the top 90-120. After that it turns into who your scouts like. I still want to know how Rosenthal lasted to the 21st round! It’s not like (at least a number of) scouts didn’t know he had a big arm and could throw strikes. I just think once you get past the very top picks there just isn’t that much difference from round to round – in other words, a 25th round draft choice may have just as much chance as a 5th round choice with the only real differentiation being that bonus babies will get preferential treatment due to the investment – but that only lasts so long. So, regarding Jeffries, he may well have been worthy of a 5th round pick, but I’m not sure it matters. In fact, I suspect clubs will let local kids in that range slide a bit knowing they still will be able to get them later. I have no idea, just a thought.
Some very good thoughts on your part about how after a certain point, it comes down to each organizations scouts and who they like. The story on Rosenthal from what I understand is he was originally a SS when he came to college. The coaches saw he had a great arm and tried him at pitching, realized they had a great talent, but when scouts from teams asked about him they downplayed his pitching ability because they wanted to keep him in college lol. Im not 100% sure thats exactly how it went down, but it was something to that effect, and you have to figure there are guys out there in these situations so they aren’t going to be on Baseball America’s radar all the time. And like you say, there are just so many guys out there, a number of them will always slip through the cracks.
To my knowledge, Rosenthal was signed at Cowley primarily for his arm. However, he was given leeway to decide which direction he wanted to go – position or pitching. I thnk I first saw him hit a legit wood bat home run at 16 – so he can hit and it will be fun to see how he does once he starts hitting again for real. Word is he took some hacks at the MWL all star game and raised a few eyebrows. I first met Rosenthal at age 15 – he played 3rd and 1st (and pitched like everybody does in youth baseball). The shortstop thing was just because of his arm and it was the juco coaches putting him there – I don’t think he ever had the range to play SS – so when I hear that I find it humorous even though it is true. However, I think he committed to pitching after the fall juco workouts, and to my knowledge never played on the infield during the spring season (I could be wrong). It was a very good juco team that got to the Juco World Weries, and it had plenty of starting pitching, so as a freshman I believe he came primarily out of the pen.
I am probably the one that posted my suspicions on the coaching recommendation shennanigans. I should be clear I have no proof of that. But I do know the coach and Rosenthal butted heads a couple of times primarily over Rosenthal’s maturity I think. I also know that scouts were all over him at the Juco World Series. So, it was the only explanation I could come up with. If someone else shared my view, I would love to know more. It has always been one of those mysteries.
The other oddity in the background of Rosenthal’s draft position is that he filled out questionnaires for several teams – the ones I remember are the Phillies and the White Sox – but to my knowledge, not the Cardinals. So the teams that theoretically knew the most about him, didn’t draft him (another reason for my theory). Doesn’t matter, the Cardinals got him and I am so happy – Missouri kid gets to play in his home state! (and all indications are he is happy too – I hope he doesn’t get traded, but he is one hell of a chip to play if they have to)
Thanks for your insight on the situation, glad I wasn’t totally crazy on hearing what i heard about Rosenthal and his story of lasting till rd. 21 lol. To be honest with you, believe I heard from a couple other people about the coaches downplaying his talent a bit on top of you saying that as well, so seems like a pretty spot on thing to me. Either way and like you say, glad he is a Cardinal and not with someone else!
ICF, that makes as much sense as anything.
Thanks for the scouting reports. If it weren’t for age, I would agree with you re: Carpenter, but four years is not an insignificant age gap, IMO.